


Polish

by dryopteridaceae



Category: Lab Rats (TV 2012)
Genre: 2k words of trans fluff ig, Blind Character, Coming Out, Everyone is Trans, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Gen, Genderqueer Character, Nail Polish, Sibling Bonding, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, adam has ADHD but it's hardly mentioned, and while krane tried he just Couldn't, bc douglas is incapable of making cishet kids, taylor and kate are girlfriends but its mentioned in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dryopteridaceae/pseuds/dryopteridaceae
Summary: Bree paints Daniel's nails. Things are good.





	Polish

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like an hour so there's probably a shit ton of mistakes but I don't care. Have some good trans kids. (Timeline wise, Daniel has been living at the academy for like... A week or so.)

Daniel looks at the supplies set up on the table. “What are you doing?”

Bree screws the top off of one of the little bottles full of shiny purple liquid. “Painting my nails.” 

“Why did you get so many bottles if you’re the only one doing it?” Daniel stands up on their toes a little bit.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Bree points out. “I’m painting  _ my  _ nails, and then Taylor’s gonna come over and I’m gonna paint hers. Even though she can’t see it she still likes picking the polish off and the nasty taste helps her stop biting her nails, so…”

“Oh.” For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to Daniel that superheroes could do something as mundane as painting their nails with their friends, but now that they look closer they can clearly see bottles of nail polish, polish remover, some q-tips, and some rags. “Can you paint my nails, too?”

She looks up at them in surprise. “Sure. Pick a color, Taylor’s still training so I can paint yours first if you help me paint mine.”

“I’m not very good at painting on other people,” they warn her. “My mom used to paint mine all the time, but she never let me paint hers because I kept getting polish everywhere.”

“You’re that bad, huh?” Bree raises her eyebrows at them and they shrug a little. Bree huffs wryly. “Then I guess I’m painting  _ everyone’s  _ nails today. C’mere and sit down, since you’re getting this without painting mine that means I get to try out some techniques on you.”

“Like what?” Daniel sits down in one of the tall counter chairs, leaning forward on their elbows.

“Like flowers and polka dots and stuff like that. Pick a color or two.” She points to the row of nail polish bottles.

Daniel picks up a sunflower yellow bottle and a cheerful sunset orange one. “These two?”

“Works for me.” Bree takes the bottles from them and unscrews the tops. “I’ll do orange for the base with yellow dots.”

“‘Kay.” Daniel watches her carefully brush the polish across their nails, enjoying the cool feeling. The two of them stayed in silence for awhile before Daniel speaks again. “You’re  _ way  _ better at this than I am.”

“It just takes practice. I’ve been painting my nails longer than I’ve been going on missions.” Bree finishes the first coat on Daniel’s right hand and moves onto their left. “Mr. Davenport brought me some when I was, like, seven. I painted Adam’s nails and got it all over  _ both  _ our hands. Mr. Davenport nearly had a heart attack because it was red polish so he thought it was blood.”

“You painted Adam’s nails?” Daniel blows on their fingertips to dry the first coat of paint before lowering their hands so Bree can apply the second one.

“Yep. Still do. He likes it when I do red and blue alternating. I  _ tried  _ to get him to do it himself, but he just breaks the bottles by mistake. And he moves around a  _ lot  _ more than you do. It’s the ADHD, I think.” Bree rolls her eyes. “Alright, second coat done on that hand, blow on it while I do the other one.”

“I didn’t think Adam would like having his nails painted. He seems kind of… You know…” Daniel shrugs a little bit.

Bree yanks their hands back down. “No moving while I’m polishing. And what, Adam seems like he wouldn’t like his nails being painted because he’s a guy?  _ You’re  _ a guy and you’re sitting here letting me paint your nails, aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” Daniel says, shifting awkwardly in their seat as Bree starts the third coat of nail polish. “I’m not a guy. I mean, I am some days, kinda, and that’s what it says on my birth certificate even if it  _ is  _ a fake one, but I’m not a guy.”

“...Alright,” Bree replies after a long moment. “So are you a girl? You said sometimes you’re a guy, are you a girl the rest of the time?”

“I don’t know?” Daniel offers weakly. “I’m still figuring all this stuff out, okay!”

“I was just wondering.” Bree unscrews the top off of the yellow polish and closes the orange one so she can start on the dots. “Do you have different pronouns you want me to use?” Daniel blinks at her and she shrugs. “What? There’s  _ four _ transgender members of my family-five now that I know about you-and half the students on this island are queer. I’m kind of used to it.”

Daniel’s eyebrows raise. “Really?”

Bree huffs. “We all have superpowers, about a hundred of us were brainwashed and forced to be in an army made up of child soldiers, we have to sleep in pods at night or else we’ll literally lose control of our bodies, and you find it hard to believe that not all of us are straight?”

Daniel turns pink as they look down at the table. “Uh… I guess not?” They remember what Bree said earlier. “Oh and I don’t care about… Pronouns? Most of the time? Yeah, I don’t care. I just don’t like it when people call me a guy. Or when people call me a ‘he’. Or a boy. It just feels bad, even when I _feel_ like a guy. Kinda.” They groan. “Ugh, that sounds so  _ weird.  _ Sorry.”

“It doesn’t sound weird. You’re not a guy, so you don’t like being called one.  _ I’m  _ not a guy and I don’t like being called one.” She rolls her eyes and starts painting the first layer of yellow dots on Daniel’s other hand. “Besides, who wants to get lumped in with Leo, Adam, and Chase anyway? Or worse, with Douglas and Mr. Davenport?”

Daniel giggles and Bree realizes completely for the first time that even though technically both of them are teenagers, Daniel’s only thirteen (well, thirteen and three quarters as they loudly correct them any time they say that they’re only a kid). She’s years older than they are and she’s seen more shit than they have and  _ hopefully  _ ever will.

“Your fingers are dry,” she says instead. “Do you wanna wait for Taylor? She should be here any second now-”

Right as she finishes her sentence there’s a whoosh of wind and black leather and Taylor appears, hands on her hips and beaming just to the side of where Bree is sitting. “Is this the right room?”

“You’re not supposed to speed around outside of the training room until you get the hang of doing it while blind,” Bree scolds mildly. She doesn’t really sound mad, Daniel notices.

“That got boring even with Kate spotting for me.” Taylor picked her way over to the empty chair and sat down in it. “Daniel, you’re here too?”

Daniel jumps a little in place. “How did you know?” They drop their voice down to a whisper. “Are you like Daredevil now?”

Taylor rolls her shoulders back and laughs at them a little. “No, that’s not actually how being blind works. Daredevil got hid with chemicals or something at the same time that he became blind, didn’t he?  _ That’s  _ what gave him his powers. I actually just heard Bree talking to you. And you’re a heavy breather with a distinctive laugh.”

Daniel flushes. “Oh. Okay.”

Bree takes Taylor’s hands and starts painting on midnight blue polish. “It’s your favorite color,” she tells her, being just as careful as she was when she was painting Daniel’s nails. “And Daniel got their nails painted too. Yellow and orange.”

Daniel jolts a little at the change in pronoun, the good kind that makes their heart flutter a little bit. They watch Taylor’s lips move silently and realize that she’s repeating the words “yellow and orange” over again to herself. “Does he-do they,” she corrects herself, and Daniel’s heart soars a little, “look good with it?”

“I’d say they look great.” Bree smiles at them and reaches out to ruffle their hair, letting go of Taylor’s hand for a second. Daniel squawks and tries to duck away. They thought-hoped, really-that they had gotten away from people doing that to them since moving to the island.

“Guys!” Someone who can only be Adam (because who  _ else  _ could be that loud) yells. “You’re painting nails and you didn’t invite me?!”

Adam’s beside them in two seconds, practically shaking with excitement. “Bree, do me next!”

“Absolutely not,” his sister snaps. “I already painted Daniel’s nails when I was only going to do Taylor’s and mine today. I haven’t even had the chance to get started on myself yet! I’m not doing yours too!”

“Fine, then I’ll paint mine! And then I’ll paint yours!” Adam reaches over Daniel’s shoulder to grab two of the polish bottles; blue and red just like Bree had said he liked.

“You always waste half the bottle! You can paint your own nails but you are  _ not  _ painting mine with your huge man-hands,” Bree shouts as Adam sits on the counter and puts the two bottles in between his legs to hold onto them.

“I do not have man-hands,” Adam pouts.

“Yes you do,” Taylor and Bree say in unison, and Daniel can’t help but burst out laughing because it’s  _ true  _ and they don't even know  _ why  _ it’s funny it just-it just  _ is. _

“You turned baby Danny against me!” Adam mock gasps dramatically.

_ “Danny  _ does whatever they want,” Bree says smugly. “I didn’t have to turn them against you. You just have giant man-hands and they know it.”

“Don’t call me Danny!” Daniel shouts indignantly.

Taylor’s laughing so hard her forehead is almost touching the counter, Adam is still puffed up in the perfect picture of mock anger, and Bree is trying not to smudge Taylor’s dark blue nails.

Adam nods solemnly. “Okay, Daniel. Names are important. I would know, I picked mine out myself.”

He tries to wink, or at least Daniel’s pretty sure that’s what he’s trying to do, but instead he just makes a movement like his face is spasming that sends Daniel into peals of laughter all over again. Taylor keeps laughing, looking confused about why she’s still doing so, and Bree elbows Adam in the leg.

“That joke stopped being funny the fiftieth time you and Chase told it to me,” she groans.

“Hey, you told it to that baseball guy!” Adam argues.

“That wasn’t supposed to be a joke!” Bree hisses back.

Daniel and Taylor keep laughing even as Daniel puts the pieces together inside their head.

_ “I would know, I picked mine out myself.” _

_ “There’s  _ four _ transgender members of my family-five now that I know about you-” _

“Oh!” Daniel says loudly, and everyone stops to look at them. Or turn their heads in their direction in Taylor’s case. “You said-four and then five family members-”

“Me, Adam, Chase, and Leo,” Bree elaborates as soon as she realizes what they’ve figured out.

Adam whoops loudly and punches a fist in the air. “Trans club!”

“Trans club,” Bree and Taylor echo, voices slightly disbelieving as Bree closes the nail polish she was using for the base of Taylor’s nails and starts painting what might be messy white flowers on top of the blue.

“Exactly. Trans club.” Adam looks at Daniel and drops his voice down to a stage whisper. “Are you a part of trans club too?”

“Adam!” Bree scolds. “What have I told you about asking people that? It’s rude!”

“It’s okay,” Daniel shrugs. “He’s my brother, right?” Adam beams at them and Daniel can’t help but smile back. “I’m a part of the trans club.”

“Woohoo!” Adam keeps punching the air even as he tries to open one of his nail polish bottles and almost spills red glittery liquid all over himself. “Trans club! Trans club! Trans-”

“Adam, that’s obnoxious,” Bree groans and punches him lightly. “Tay, back me up.”

“You’re obnoxious,” Taylor agrees. “Just in general but especially right now.”

“I’m  _ wounded.  _ I’m  _ betrayed.  _ Next time your girlfriend comes to me for help opening a jar, I won’t help her just because you insulted me!” Adam crosses his arms and accidentally dumps nail polish all over the counter and his arm.

Bree shrieks, Taylor asks what happened, Adam stares at the mess sadly, and Daniel falls out of their chair from laughing so hard.

Maybe the transition from home to living here won’t be as bad as they thought it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> For clarification, Adam is a trans man, Bree is a trans woman, Daniel is genderqueer/genderfluid, Taylor is a trans woman and a lesbian, and even though they aren't actually present in this fic Chase and Leo are both nonbinary.


End file.
